Marvel’s Timely Problem
Did you know Marvel Comics was once called Timely Comics before they created many of their modern and even pre-modern characters? It was a rebranding that would serve them well, as “Marvel”, “Marvelous”, and “Make Mine Marvel” became phrases and exclamations associated with the brand. In high contrast to the stuffy “D.C. Comics” or “Detective Comics” meaning the name is actually “Detective Comics Comics”.
I’ve often said though: “if you aren’t a Marvel fan when you are young, you have no heart, and if you aren’t a DC fan when you are old, you have no head.” Both companies have spotty records on racism, sexism, xenophobia, and keeping up with changing times, and especially the changing attitudes of young readers, often dismissed in favor of catering to aging and bitter incel fans. This is also ignoring their huge problems with treatment of staff and creators, with DC having a slightly better financial situation involving creator rights. However both companies staked claim in certain philosophies.
One big one, for Marvel, was the idea of “the world outside your window”. Unlike DC’s slate of billionaires, hot shot reporters, ace fighter pilots, and foreign diplomats, Marvel’s heroes with either not especially privileged financially, or dealt with mental and or identity issues that vast majority do not. In other word, metaphors for minorities and the common working man. DC, of course, has many of these characters now, but in 1960, Marvel’s approach to working class heroes as their primary draw drew a sharp contrast.
This is not to say these companies don’t evolve storytelling or make changes to these characters, but they certainly staked their early reputations in certain editorial decisions that for better or worse, have been their guiding hand going forward.
DC made one decision that in 2024 has proven the more durable storytelling strategy: Marvel chose the “sliding timescale”, DC did not.
A CASE FOR THE BLACK MAGNETO
Despite the title, this will not actually be an advocacy for the black Magneto of the movie, but I think this presence in the zeitgeist, is a perfect example of what is wrong with Marvel’s sliding time scale, and a good jumping off point to demonstrate what it is.
The basic case is that in order for Magneto to credibly be a Holocaust survivor, and even with de-aging, it’s straining credibility, and he’s approaching one hundred. Since movie goers don’t want Magneto to need a opening crawl like he’s Palpatine, why not update his origin to that of a black man in the Jim Crow era. Perhaps someone who was Jewish, or the child of Holocaust survivors. That audiences would have an easier time accepting this.
DC is not without it’s share of World War II heroes, in fact Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Robin, The Teen Titans, The All-Winners Squad, are all part of that group. Pretty much the entirety of DC Comics. Eventually though, it made no sense that a ten year old Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent fought, yes, literally fought, in those wars, so they created Earth-1 and Earth-2. Those events in World War II took place in a different world, similar to our own, but taking place at a different time. While this wasn’t used to offer much diversity, skin color or otherwise, it did allow them to say “well, this isn’t the classic Bruce Wayne, and take his character in a different direction”, a decision which led to “the dark knight” we now know him as.
Marvel has done similar things, once, with The Ultimate Universe, which also imagined a Magneto separate from the holocaust (still Jewish, I believe) as a religious zealot, and despite the controversial decision by Mark Millar, the comic sold well, was well received at the time, and was popular among fans. Granted he wasn’t the main character of the book. However Marvel was always adamant the Ultimate Universe was a fun diversion, and the main story plowed on. The Ultimate Universe started in 2000 parallel to the main continuity. It died a painful death over a decade later.
In the main continuity, Magneto would have to be 100, an almost improbably feat, to have survived, and remembered the Holocaust. He couldn’t be physically 90, because he’ll be a shriveled old man. This has been accomplished in a variety of way. A while back, between X-Men’s hiatus in the late 60s, to it’s relaunch, he was de-aged by Alpha The Ultimate Mutant to an infant, and aged to prime after. So realistically in the comics he would be 60 at most.
The problem is this is all stupid. Even at a certain point Captain America’s thawing becomes a bit daft? Like at some point Captain America waking up in 2024 — I believe the movie has him at 2008 — is like an elseworld’s tale compared to whatever Stan Lee wrote back in 1963. I mean, yes, Captain America saw his friends get older, now they’re just dead. He watched cultural attitudes change, now he’s basically a fascist. He never appeared to have much interest in women and had his special friend Bucky around? He’s gay coded. I’m not saying he is these things, I’m just saying they’d have to be addressed in the story as part of that story written now. It would fundamentally change the fact that he can’t fight Baron Zemo, his old nemesis as a still alive man.
This brings us back to Magneto. Max Eisenhart was a child of the Jewish Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, that’s not specifically the problem. The problem is he meets Xavier who is about ten years younger. Later incarnations would widen this age gap a bit to ten, twenty, sometimes thirty years, with Xavier being a young grad student. My professors were all within that age range, I’m not yet forty, and many of them are quite old. You need these age ranges to hold to believably foster the same friendship or rivalry or romance between characters, otherwise it fundamentally changes.
Immortality, as many purpose, fundamentally changes a character. How long has Magneto been operating as a terrorist? Do we have him meditate for 40 years? Put in suspended animation? Does he now become a man out of time like Captain America? The problem comes from the original narratives, which are still canon, often prohibit that, leading to a series of ad hoc solutions. From a screenwriting standpoint, I suppose the solutions are numerous, as far as the black Magneto movie goes — but it’s hard to keep his Jewishness (which, of course anyone can be regardless), his status as a “Holocaust survivor”, and the same story, without that story being drastically re-altered and the character drastically rethought.
This is the problem of Marvel’s sliding timescale, but there are others.
The main problem is the inevitable character re-invention, but it is deeper than that. While Marvel has made a major diversity push, consisting of mostly establish character juniors, ironically what DC pioneered, DC has done this longer, better, and more.
Marvel’s sliding timescale ties it largely to the sixties. It’s not just the “idea of the Black Magneto” that exists as a specter because of some half assed creative writing idea, it’s because events that happen in the past, as they all get pulled up would change. Spider-Man, now, would likely be black or biracial, as Miles is. This is as obvious a read in writing as there is one, because of the wallflower outcast that Peter Parker is presented. You would want someone, like a biracial kid, who doesn’t necessarily fit into this box to be your Spider-Man. Cyclops, a favored character or mine, is an army brat, and depicted as black often, and I think for obvious reasons. Many, many black Air Force pilots in the US Military, as his father Christopher Summers may have been. This is where DC has excelled where Marvel has failed. Marvel struggles to update their characters in believable ways because the classic characters from the 1960s are still hanging around going “hello my fellow kids”.
If you look at DC what you will see is more adult minority characters. One of their biggest success stories, John Constantine, is bisexual. There are a black Batman, black Superman, black Wonder Woman, black Flash, black Green Lantern, John Stewart, who has been a mainstay for decades, and the star of the biggest DC cartoon ever made, a biracial Conor Hawke Green Arrow, a black Black Canary, and just about every rainbow character that exist, every race, ethnicity, creed, religion, and teams of entire black characters, and more marquee black creators. Marvel talks a great game in regard to liberal politics, but they don’t double down on them in the way DC does. Maybe even left-wing politics. Despite having the X-Men, hopefully re-emerging as their flagship.
The other problem is it makes it not the world outside our window. Can Spider-Man even be at 9/11 anymore? That’s pretty important. That had a huge impact on the world. Can Covid have happened? Could Beast have opined about being on the Ed Sullivan Show. When does it make sense for them to be listening to podcasts instead of watching television. Which superhero grew up watching the streamer Destiny and which one liked Mr Beast videos? It feels as though the world has change drastically since 2016. I’m literally here writing an article about it. To me the idea of rebooting once every ten to fifteen years proved the more durable storytelling strategy. Marvel heroes, particularly their major heroes, seem very out of sync with today’s life.
It is the sliding time scale that has caused this. This need to constantly live down and tweak this old continuity without acknowledging that Cyclops is what? Forty now? I get Xavier and Magneto have cloned bodies or de-aged bodies — but their books don’t really treat them this way. The movies are, at least, forced to be honest in this regard. Wolverine and Cyclops will be their actors ages in the new Deadpool movie.
I think it is perfectly fine to bookend the 616 continuity. Even if you think it’s painful. You can certainly keep as many aspects, from Magneto being a holocaust survivor, but you will have to drastically alter the stories or character. Magneto becomes more like Apocalypse, someone who is re-awakened. This can only happen if you sunset the original continuity. Then they can hash out whose sexualities, genders, sexes, races, or ethnicities change over time — who’s backstories make no sense anymore.
Comics change and editorial decisions should change. I love 616, and think it contained many of my favorite characters, all of them, in fact, forever and ever. There is more than enough for me to read, until I die, not counting the many series revivals. Let it be said that the comic that got me into comics was X-Men and Marvel’s Transformers, and Transformers has constantly rebooted, from square one. Led to a very good run of comics, almost all quality. Because they aren’t afraid to start from scratch. Over, and over again.
Marvel should fully reboot their continuity. Certainly after any current runs or artist/writer teams have been allowed to tell the totality of the stories, but after that, I think the reset button at Marvel is long overdue.